March 15, 2013 AT 2:00 am

We just got this message from John Cole from Dexter Industries: “We just got a load of Raspberry Pi’s from Adafruit and we’ll be putting together some more projects! Thanks for the support!” Here are some notes from their latest project, building a LEGO MINDSTORM robot around a Raspberry Pi:

Since we first got the Raspberry Pi, we have wanted to make a robot out of it. There aren’t many kits out there yet that let you do that (yet). This HowTo Raspberry Pi Project shows you how we hacked together a motor controller from the Raspberry Pi and used it to control LEGO MINDSTORMS Motors.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS system comes with 3 motors that are run at 9V. The LEGO MINDSTORMS motors run by applying 9V power to the White or Black wires in the Mindstorms jack. If you apply 9V to the black wire, the motor moves in one direction. If you apply 9V to the white wire, the motor moves in the opposite direction. And thus you’re able to get the motor to turn, depending on the voltage put across either of the the two wires.